Blogged by profjohn in Community, Reviews, Sample Images on October 19, 2007 at 00:06 CET.
Dan Kaplan, an astronomy customer in Kensington, Maryland and an avid DMK user since January of this year, has produced numerous images with the mono, the color and the raw Bayer cameras available on AstronomyCameras.com. Dan sent a couple of Saturn shots to me a few days ago that I thought all would enjoy.
Additionally, he has great things to say about our cameras!
Although I’ve had a DMK camera (and the DBK 31 AF03.AS) for just a few months, I’ve been involved with planetary imaging for several years. I’ve been primarily using a ToUcam Pro webcam and have been impressed with the results, but decided to step up to a better camera to try to eek out a bit of additional detail. Simply put, I was amazed at the results I could achieve with the DMK camera. It’s really in a different league from other cameras I’ve tried. Since getting the camera, my skies have been consistently mediocre, with very few nights of even fairly steady seeing, and the transparency has been, well, lousy. So, I haven’t been using the DMK under ideal conditions, but, even so, I’ve gotten images much better than anything I could do in the past. Not only with the ToUcam, but other cameras as well, some costing a good deal more than the DMK.
I have attached three images. The first one, of Saturn, taken with a 7″ TMB apochromatic refractor, has the most detail of any Saturn image I’ve taken.
The second picture of Saturn is taken with a 3.5″ Questar. The Questar has really sharp optics, but it’s still a 3.5″ scope. Although conventional wisdom says that you’re just not going to get much detail, to my surprise, the Saturn image is the sharpest one I’ve seen yet using the 3.5 and looks much like images using the Questar 7.
And the moon picture…just as impressive.
Dan Kaplan, Kensington, MD
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Blogged by Jonathan Maron in Community on October 18, 2007 at 07:21 CET.
These are the words of Tony Darnell over at the Astronomy Buff Blog:
The [DMK 21AF04.AS] costs $390.00 so it’s really a no-brainer for astro-geeks like me. I’ve read some good followup info on the astronomycamerablog and I’m excited to get my camera.
It looks like he is excited to be getting his hands on the camera, but does not really like the name. He writes the following amusing exemplary dialog:
Person #1: “Hey Bill, have you tried the new DMK 21AF04.AS?”
Person #2: “The what?”
Person #1: “Why the DMK 21AF04.AS, of course. It’s a great little camera that only cost me 400 bucks.”
Person #2: “What’s it called again?”
Person #1: Sigh. “The DMK 21AF04.AS goddamit. [...] IT’S THE DMK 21AF04.AS FOR CHRISSAKES BILL!”
Tony raises a good point: How come our cameras have such cryptic names? The reason is simple. The Imaging Source astronomy cameras are the brothers of The Imaging Source industrial cameras. In industrial circles, cryptic names are cool!
Profjohn wrote a great blog post about our camera names:
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Blogged by Jonathan Maron in Community, Special Offers on October 17, 2007 at 10:41 CET.
Following the incredibly successful release of AstronomyCamerasCompetition.com, we are delighted to announce the site is now available in the following languages:
On this new web site, you can win great astronomy cameras related prizes.
All you have to do is answer a simple question, enter your name and e-mail address and click the big ENTER COMPETITION button.
With a bit of luck, you could be our next winner! (Winners List).
There is a new competition each month.
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Blogged by Jonathan Maron in Sample Images on October 16, 2007 at 16:24 CET.
We have blogged about Alan Friedman previously in this blog. He is renowned for his artistic, high quality astrophotography.
Recently, he was in contact with Profjohn to let us know that he had captured the following daytime streak of the International Space Station (ISS) in front of the waning gibbous Moon. The animation was captured on September 02, 2007.
Click for full resolution.
For the sequence, he used an Astro-Physics 155edfs and DMK 41AF02 camera with IR filter. Color data captured with a Nikon D1x. Processed in Adobe Photoshop.
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Blogged by Jonathan Maron in Sample Images on October 15, 2007 at 08:49 CET.
Larry Owens of Alpharetta, GA, USA has posted the following composite Mars photo, which compares the SKYnyx2-0M (USD 995.00) with the DMK 21AF04 (USD 390.00).
A great discussion has started in the Cloudy Nights Telescope Reviews forum, evaluating the photo and debating which of the two cameras is better. Post your opinion!
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